er Giovanna had not fully understood the meaning of what her aunt
had said. She stood motionless during the long pause that followed the
last words.

Then, without warning, the delirious woman began to laugh, vacantly
and foolishly at first, and with short interruptions of silence, but
then more loudly, and by degrees more continuously, till the spasms
grew wild and hysterical, and bad to hear. Sister Giovanna went
quickly to her and at once tried to put a stop to the attack. The
Princess was rolling her head from side to side on the pillows, with
her arms stretched out on each side of her and her white hands clawing
at the broad hem of the sheet with all their strength, as if they must
tear the fine linen to strips, and she was shrieking with
uncontrollable laughter.

Sister Giovanna bent down and grasped one arm firmly with both hands.

'Control yourself!' she said in a tone of command. 'Stop laughing at
once!'

The Princess shrieked again and again.

'Silence!' cried the nurse in a stern voice, and she shook the arm she
held with a good deal of roughness, for she knew that there was no
other way.

The delirious woman screamed once more, and then gulped several times
as if she were going to sob; at last she lay quite still for a moment,
gazing up into her nurse's eyes. Then a change came into her face, and
she spoke in a hoarse whisper, and as if frightened.

'Are you going to refuse me absolution for taking the will?' she
asked.

The question was so unexpected that Sister Giovanna did not find
anything to say at once, and before any words occurred to her the
Princess was speaking hurriedly and earnestly, but still in a loud
whisper, which occasionally broke into a very low and trembling tone
of voice.

'I did it for the best. What could that wretched girl have done with
the money, even if the lawyers had proved the will good? Why did not
my brother-in-law get civilly married, instead of leaving his daughter
without so much as a name? There must have been a reason. Perhaps she
was not really his wife's child! It was all his fault, and the will
was not legal and would only have given trouble if I had let them find
it! So I took it away, and burned it in my own room. What harm was
there in that? It saved so many useless complications, and we had a
right to the fortune! The lawyers said so! I cannot see that it was
really a sin at all, Father, indeed I cannot! I have confessed it from
a scruple of conscience